ANALYSING HANON AND OTHER OPTIONS FOR YOUR FINGERING AND WARMING-UP EXERCISES.

New post on WKMT Blog! Anthony Elward brings us his recent article about Hanon and warming-up piano exercises.

Surely you have heard about Hanon and his piano exercises. He created The Virtuoso Pianist, a compound of sixty piano exercises with which you improve your finger dexterity, strength, speed and agility of the wrists too. Rachmaninoff, the Russian composer, considered Hanon as his own secret of his virtuosic. He once stated that the Russian conservatories were using Hanon exercises to train its pianists. It is also believed that these conservatories had special examinations at which the students had to know the exercises by heart, played fast and precise.

The entire Virtuoso is split into three different sections:

Exercises to develop finger strength. Based on semiquavers and octaves.

Exercises using scales and arpeggios to fully master the virtuoso technique.

The most difficult section only when mastery of the two previous ones. Including repeated notes, repeated double notes, scales in thirds and octaves, tremolos, and more.

Once the three sections are mastered, Hanon recommended to play them on a daily basis to retain the technique. Using his studies proves your finger dexterity, strength agility and speed on the piano. At WKMT always recommend his exercises to improve them all along the piano learning process.

However, Hanon’s Virtuoso has had and still has many detractors who think the exercises are too mechanical and therefore unmusical. And that’s why we considered this new article to be published as it makes the dimension between the people who are pro-Hanon and the alternative ideas are given to replace it.

Do not miss the chance and extend this read with the link aforementioned. You will find the entire Anthony’s article about Hanon and other pieces which could also help us to improve the same skills and learning repertoire too.